Description

The devastating Drought and Famine of 1991/1992 that affected much of Northern Kenya, has drastically disabled many members of the pastoral communities and changed their modes of livelihood.Unfortunately, the fact that it went practically unnoticed by the Kenya mass media shows how high the level of human suffering has become which we have learnt to accept as "normal", and that even such a devastating drought, as long as it takes place in some remote corner of Kenya, no longer has any news value.This devastation is only comparable to the great drought and epidemic which occurred one century ago, referred to as "chinn tiite guraaca".That was a period of disastrous smallpox and rinderpest epidemics in the 1890's, which caused innumerable losses of both livestock and human lives in the Horn of Africa.Almost all livestock, especially cattle perished.During that period, the Boran and the Gabra communities relied heavily on their "Waata" clients, a wandering hunter/gatherer society, to survive the famine that followed the epidemics.In addition, they also employed their traditional survival strate¬gies, and by hunting wild game and collecting wild fruits and roots of plants, they survived.